Life in the Scriptures has a new format that will spend a Year in the New Testament, in a book-by-book journey reading one chapter per day. This approach enables busy people to have daily Bible readings, and to increase their familiarity with the people, places, and teachings of the New Testament. It is a profitable and helpful Bible study method. May God bless it to you.

Continuing in the subject of the
difference between "doers of the word" and "hearers only," James
4:13-17 shows that hearers only are primarily concerned about money and the
comforts and pleasures it can buy. They
are worldly rather than Godly. James is
not talking here about the openly profane, or about those who use questionable
tactics in business. He is talking about
people who profess Christ, but whose faith does not move them toward God and
Godliness. These people claim to be
Christians, but go through life with little care or thought for God. Though such people may be very moral, James
says their actions are evil (4:16). In
this uncertain world, goods, and even their lives can be taken away from them
at any moment (4:14), therefore they should be more concerned about knowing God
and seeking Him in all of life, including their business ventures (4:15). They know this, yet do not practice it, thus,
they sin (4:17).

In 5:1-6, James turns to the perils of
wealth and the evil into which it has led many people. The point of verses 1-3
is that wealth is easily lost. Verses
4-6 show what evil men do to obtain and keep wealth. 7-11 call Christians, and
those who have been "hearers only" to turn their attention to the
Lord, waiting for the promises of God as the farmer waits for the rains and the
harvest (5:7-8). He gives the Old
Testament prophets as examples of patient faith, who endured rejection and
persecution from their own people, just as Jewish Christians were experiencing
in James' time (5:10). He calls Job to
their minds as an example of one who, though suffering grief and poverty,
remained faithful to God, thus, possessing the greater wealth of God's love and
mercy (5:11). The point, of course, is
that the Jews who were suffering persecution and loss for the sake of Christ
also possess wealth that cannot perish, and even death can't steal, through the
tender mercy of the Lord.

Tuesday
after the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

Lectionary

Morning - Ps. 90, 1 Kings 22:1-12, James
5:12-20

Evening - Ps. 104, Job 38:1-18, Mt.
17:1-13

Commentary, James 5:12-20

James ends his epistle with several
important exhortations. Swearing, in
verse 12 does not refer to "cussing," though cussing is an obviously evil
thing. It refers to attempting to make an
oath more valid by swearing in the name of God, Heaven, angels, or holy things
which we have no power to bind by our promises. Such "vain and rash
swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ, and James his
Apostle" (Articles of Religion XXXIX).
Accordingly we Anglicans ask people in baptism and confirmation to
promise, rather than swear, and, rather than asking them to attempt to obligate
God or anyone else, we simply ask them to respond with "I will, by God's
help." This answer is yea or
nay. "By God's help" is not an
oath in the name of God, but a prayerful confession that the help of God is
necessary to enable us to keep our obligation.

Verse 13, though short, gives important
directions for much of what happens to us in life. We are often afflicted. At such times let us seek God in prayer. When we are merry, let us sing Psalms to God in
our joy. Thus, in joy or sorrow, we come
to God. Often, even Christians, facing
sorrow seek relief in things other than God.
Rather than prayer, and seeking to know the Biblical way to deal with
our troubles, we think a vacation or a new toy will cheer us up. But perhaps the Biblical answer may be to
persevere and honour God even in our sorrows.
Likewise, in joy, people often forget about God instead of remembering
and thanking Him.

Verses14-16 do not guarantee physical
healing every time we get sick. They do
remind us that the prayers of our friends, and, especially, our ministers, are
as important in the treatment of illness as the medications and advice of
physicians. We are to call for the minister
of the church with as much urgency as we call for the physician. His prayers, which avail much (5:16), are an
important part of the means of our cure.
Our own prayers are also important, and chief among them is the prayer
of confession. This means we are not
simply praying that God will heal us so we can go back to business as
usual. We are asking that life in the
future will be more Godly. We are asking
not only to be delivered from suffering, but also, even, especially, that we
may serve God more fully in the future.

Verses 17 and 18 continue to urge the
sick, and all of us, to pray by reminding us that God answers prayer. If God answered Elijah's prayer to withhold
the rain for three years, we may believe He will answer the prayers of those who
call upon Him today.

Verses 19 and 20 show that our
responsibility for Christian compassion and love requires us to learn and grow
from one another. This includes the
sermons, liturgies, and Bible studies of the Church, and also our daily
discourse with one another. Our
conversation should be edifying to our hearers, building them up in the
faith. We should also be open to the
wisdom of others, who may be able to see things we have overlooked. This does not mean we are to become busy
bodies, looking for faults in others and imposing our advice on them. Remember James' earlier warning to be swift
to hear and slow to speak. It means that
our actions and conversation should be helpful to others by pointing them
toward Christ, His Word, and His Church.
If God in His grace uses you to help turn someone from error or sin,
rejoice, for God has saved a soul from death and forgiven a multitude of sins.

Wednesday
after the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

Lectionary

Morning - Ps. 94, 1 Kings 22:13-28, 1Timothy
1:1-11

Evening - Ps. 113, 114, Job 38:19-30, Mt.
17:14

Commentary, 1Timothy 1:1-11

This morning's reading begins the First
Epistle of Paul to Timothy. As Paul
wrote this letter he was in Macedonia,
having been released from house arrest in Rome. Timothy was in Ephesus overseeing the Church in that city
and the surrounding area, especially the ministers, some of whom had begun to
teach things contrary to the Gospel (1:3-4, 7).
Their attempts to teach the law, whether by intention or merely
ignorance, had led some of the ministers into error. So Timothy's task is to charge them to teach
no other doctrine but the Gospel (1:3 & 4).
The "commandment" of verse 5 is not the Old Testament
law. It is the charge Timothy is to give
to the ministers. The end (goal) of this
charge is love from a pure heart and good conscience. This means it is real Christian charity, not
phony or of mixed motives. A good conscience means to be able to say or do
something without their consciences convicting them. The Christian minister
should be able to say, without his conscience convicting him otherwise, that he
loves God and His Church. Not just "The Church" but his own
congregation and every member of it. The
same is true of every member of the congregation. All should be able to say they love each
other. A minister who loves his church will preach the truth to them. He will lead them into the means of grace and
the life of Godliness. A congregation that loves its minister will gladly
receive his ministry to them and will ensure that they are present for his
sermons and other ministries (1 Thess. 5:12 & 13). If someone is unable to
say he is doing this, without his conscience convicting him otherwise, it is
his duty to change his own attitude and heart.

The Ephesian ministers attempting to
teach the Old Testament law do not understand what they are saying. Their teaching does not lead people to
Christ; it binds them with burdens. So
Paul gives some instruction about the law.
Obviously Timothy already knew this, and Paul probably put it in the
letter so the ministers could see it and know that the things Timothy was
saying were from Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment (authority
and decree) of God (1:1). The point of
these verses is that the law of God was not given for theologians to debate and
discuss how far a person can walk on the Sabbath. It was given to direct people into the way of
God and to show us the things we ought to be doing. In this sense, it is for the disobedient and
ungodly (1:9 & 10). It is for those
who are doing anything that is contrary to sound doctrine in accordance with
the Gospel, which was committed to Paul by God (1:11). To such people the law is a warning that they
are not living according to the will of God.
Thus the law gives sinners (all have sinned, Rom. 3:23) an opportunity
to repent and seek God's forgiveness in Christ.
The point of the law is to lead us to Christ.

"[W]ithout
thee we are not able to please thee... ."
These words from Collect for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity lead us
immediately to that aspect of the Christian life into which we hope to be
encouraged and strengthened today, pleasing God. What does it mean to please God, and how can
we, weak and foolish and sinful as we are, ever hope to achieve the lofty goal
of pleasing God?

We
must acknowledge that an essential part of our calling into Christ, is pleasing
God. I think contemporary evangelicalism
places too much emphasis on what God saves us from, and too little emphasis on
what God saves us to. It tends to give
the idea that Christ died only to forgive our sins and take us to Heaven. But He died to accomplish much more than that
in us. He died to make us into a new
kind of person. He died to bring us into
an Empire of peace. He died to form us
into a kingdom of priests who offer up continual sacrifices of holy living in
accordance with the moral and spiritual teachings of the Bible. These moral/spiritual teachings are just as
much a part of the Gospel as being forgiven of sin and saved from hell. The verse that says, "If ye love Me,
keep my commandments" (Jn. 14:15) is just as much a part of the Gospel as
the verse that says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus." In fact, that
verse, Romans 8:1, goes on to describe those who are in Christ Jesus as those "who
walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." In other words, it is those who live the new
life in Christ who are the saved. Or, as
we read in James 1:22 in the morning readings last Tuesday, it is those who hear and do the word of God
who are the real Christians, not those who only "hear" it.

The
Epistle for this morning pictures the new life we are to live as
Christians. The new life takes us out of
the former habits and values of spiritual darkness, which Ephesians 4:22 calls
"the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful
lusts." Putting off such things is
a necessary part of being a Christian.
They must be put off like filthy, vermin infested garments, and we must
put on the "new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true
holiness" (Eph. 4:24). The rest of
the book of Ephesians is about how the new man lives the life of righteousness
and true holiness. All those verses
about speaking truth, and working to earn your living, and submitting to your
husband, and loving your wife as Christ loves the Church, and honouring your
parents, and provoking not your children to wrath, and putting on the whole
armour of God, and watching in prayer, are about the way you are called to live
if you are a true Christian. And it
might be a good thing to ask yourself right now if you really intend to be a
true Christian or not. Are you really
willing to follow Christ, or are you just playing games with God to salve your
conscience? Seriously ask yourself this,
because you are to examine yourself before you come to the Lord's Table, and
because the consequences of playing games with God are eternal.

Listen,
please, because this is very important.
I constantly encourage you to pray and read the Bible daily and to come
to church every Sunday. I don't ask this
for me or for my benefit. I ask it for
your benefit, because I want you to grow in the knowledge and faith and
strength and communion of God. This is a
very important part of being a Christian. I think the Bible clearly teaches that those
who cannot find the motivation to do these simple things have reason to doubt
the validity of their faith. But, being
a Christian is more than prayer and Bible reading. In fact, you can read the Bible daily, spend
hours in "prayer," go to church, and receive baptism, confirmation,
and Holy Communion, yet still be far away from God in your heart. You can know the Bible well, and be an expert
in Hebrew, Greek, and all the various doctrines of the Bible, yet still be mentally
and spiritually aloof from God. That is
why James wrote that we must be doers of the word and not hearers only, for
those who hear but will not do the word, deceive themselves.

But
who has been a doer of the word? Who has
lived life according to the Spirit instead of according to the flesh? Who can say with confidence, "I have
kept the commandments of God?" Would we not be more correct to say with
Paul, I am chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15) and with the publican, "God be
merciful to me a sinner?" (Lk. 18:13).
Thanks be to God it is not our works of obedience to His commandments
that make us acceptable to God. It is
the sacrifice of Christ, bearing our sins in Himself and dying for them on the
cross that makes us acceptable to God.
And thank God also that we are not left to our own devices and power to
live the Christian life. Without Him,
that is, without His help, we are unable to please Him. Even with His help we will not be perfect in
this life, of course we can do far better than we are currently doing, if we
really want to. In A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, William Law asked why
most people who call themselves Christians never live devout and holy lives. His
answer? Because they never intend to. They
go to church and they say the prayer asking God to enable them to "live a
godly, righteous and holy life," but they don't mean it. They don't really want to live that way. I believe he is correct, but I beg you not to
let that be true of you.

Truly
we need God's help if we are going to live lives that are holy and Godly and
pleasing unto God, but, is God willing to help?
To answer this question let us turn to the Gospel reading for this
morning. Here we see Christ healing the
physical ailment of a paralysed man. Our
Lord makes it plain that He is not merely healing the disease of the the flesh;
He is primarily healing the disease of the soul. "Thy sins be forgiven thee," He
said to the man. Why do we read this
passage in connection with the topic of pleasing God, and how does it answer
the question of the willingness of God to help us? Because it shows the compassion and help of
God. If God was willing to help the man
whose legs were paralysed, He is also willing to help those whose faith is
paralysed. He who is willing to forgive
sins at the cost of His own life, will also freely help His people live the
life of faith as surely as He who freed the ancient Hebrews led them from Egypt
to the Promised Land.

So,
we need the help of God if we are going to live the Christian life, and God has
promised to help us. This means two
things for us in practical, daily life.
First, we must ask God to help us.
This might mean that our prayers need to have a change of focus. We may need to pray less about getting the
physical things of the world, and more about help to be the husbands,wives,
daughters, sons, parents, employees, church members, and Christians God wants
us to be. In other words, we may need to
spend more time seeking help to live a holy and Godly life. Second, we must avail ourselves of the help
He gives. If you ask most Christians how
God helps us, they will usually say something like, "by the power of the
Holy Spirit." By that they mean God
somehow infuses us with Heavenly power and we are able to conquer sin and do all
good works He has prepared for us to walk in.
But how does God infuse us with that power? Primarily through the means
of grace received in faith. He helps us
as we read the Bible in faith. He helps
us as we pray Biblical prayers in faith.
He helps us as we worship at home and in Church in faith. He helps us as we come to the communion table
in faith. These are the things God has
ordained to help and succour His people, and to enable us to put off the old
things of sin and self, and to put on the new things of God and holiness. These are the means by which God helps us
please Him.

"O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able
to please thee; Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct
and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen"

A Prayer for Biblical Understanding

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given to us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

About Me

The Rt. Rev. R. Dennis Campbell is Bishop of the Anglican Orthodox Church Diocese of Virginia, and Rector of Holy Trinity Anglican Orthodox Church in Powhatan, Virginia. He is the author of two books, He Shall Reign, and Gotta Run, and holds degrees from Southwest Baptist University, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.